Mission designers in hiding

[Blooze]

I have downloaded a few really good MP missions from the forums and user files but I can't help but think that what is available here is only a fraction of what has been designed by some creative people in the community. So, I ask this question, is there anyone out there that has designed MP missions for A10-C and KA-50 aircraft that is willing to share them? I favor missions like Separatist's Aggression, OP Bactria, OP Hacienda, OP Talon's Reach etc and would be grateful for more missions like those to host on the Ragtag Air Corps server. IMO the MP community is fading and is in dire need of fresh material so if you have it.....cough it up folks. Feel free to PM me if you like.

Thanks

[Grimes]

Hoggit has a list of MP missions. http://wiki.hoggit.us/view/Missions Its not 100% comprehensive but it includes some of the older mission files that might be buried in this forum section.

 

Generally speaking though more missions tend to be developed when a module is released or major new features are added. The A-10C was released a while ago and the volume has simply declined from its initial release to now. Additionally some reserve the use of their missions for their own servers or personal use. The new sticky posts for missions are relatively new and haven't been used all that much as of yet.

[Blooze]

Hoggit has a list of MP missions. http://wiki.hoggit.us/view/Missions Its not 100% comprehensive but it includes some of the older mission files that might be buried in this forum section.

 

Generally speaking though more missions tend to be developed when a module is released or major new features are added. The A-10C was released a while ago and the volume has simply declined from its initial release to now. Additionally some reserve the use of their missions for their own servers or personal use. The new sticky posts for missions are relatively new and haven't been used all that much as of yet.

 

Wow....I had no idea such a list existed. That ought to keep me busy for a while. Thanks for your reply.

[IADC]

Blooze there are several mission builders out there including myself and we tend to release missions every few months. The thing with building missions is they have to be flown many times to test their play-ability and the builder needs feed back to get them working properly. Unfortunately on this forum feed back is next to non existent. People play them and if they work they move on and if they don't work they move on. All this said it sometimes leaves the mission builder thinking why do i bother spending 30+ hours working on something that will never be properly completed because no feed back comes through. What happens next is mission builders start keeping them to them selves and playing them with friends. If the mission plays out well without glitches they sometimes get released to the public but if there are glitches that prevent the mission from playing out they mostly just get left on the shelf because after 30+ hours of mission building and testing on your own your just sick of the sight of it. So in nut shell your plea to "cough em up" may not mount to much i am afraid.

[RagnarDa]

Blooze there are several mission builders out there including myself and we tend to release missions every few months. The thing with building missions is they have to be flown many times to test their play-ability and the builder needs feed back to get them working properly. Unfortunately on this forum feed back is next to non existent. People play them and if they work they move on and if they don't work they move on. All this said it sometimes leaves the mission builder thinking why do i bother spending 30+ hours working on something that will never be properly completed because no feed back comes through. What happens next is mission builders start keeping them to them selves and playing them with friends. If the mission plays out well without glitches they sometimes get released to the public but if there are glitches that prevent the mission from playing out they mostly just get left on the shelf because after 30+ hours of mission building and testing on your own your just sick of the sight of it. So in nut shell your plea to "cough em up" may not mount to much i am afraid.

I think this is very true.

[STP Dragon]

Blooze there are several mission builders out there including myself and we tend to release missions every few months. The thing with building missions is they have to be flown many times to test their play-ability and the builder needs feed back to get them working properly. Unfortunately on this forum feed back is next to non existent. People play them and if they work they move on and if they don't work they move on. All this said it sometimes leaves the mission builder thinking why do i bother spending 30+ hours working on something that will never be properly completed because no feed back comes through. What happens next is mission builders start keeping them to them selves and playing them with friends. If the mission plays out well without glitches they sometimes get released to the public but if there are glitches that prevent the mission from playing out they mostly just get left on the shelf because after 30+ hours of mission building and testing on your own your just sick of the sight of it. So in nut shell your plea to "cough em up" may not mount to much i am afraid.

I know what you'r talking about.

I'm very lucky to have a 20-people-squadron waiting to test my missions.

This is a main reason why 25+ of my missions are out there.

Edited May 28, 2013 by =STP= Dragon

[Blooze]

Blooze there are several mission builders out there including myself and we tend to release missions every few months. The thing with building missions is they have to be flown many times to test their play-ability and the builder needs feed back to get them working properly. Unfortunately on this forum feed back is next to non existent. People play them and if they work they move on and if they don't work they move on. All this said it sometimes leaves the mission builder thinking why do i bother spending 30+ hours working on something that will never be properly completed because no feed back comes through. What happens next is mission builders start keeping them to them selves and playing them with friends. If the mission plays out well without glitches they sometimes get released to the public but if there are glitches that prevent the mission from playing out they mostly just get left on the shelf because after 30+ hours of mission building and testing on your own your just sick of the sight of it. So in nut shell your plea to "cough em up" may not mount to much i am afraid.

 

Thanks for the insight and now that I see it from that point of view it's quite understandable why there are so few available. I hope this post will be read by those who have spent the many hours producing the missions that are available so that this will at least serve as a big THANK YOU for your efforts from one grateful MP pilot.:thumbup:

[IADC]

Blooze, I dont know if you have tried any of my missions but they are all available to down load. They may not be the kind of mission you prefer as my missions are very dependent on completing taskings in a limited amount of time or the mission is lost. They are also mostly built for 2-4 players. Although I have turned some of them into SP missions they are difficult to win with just one A10 in the air as most people end up with sensory overload as you cant share out the work load. I have another mission in the build which will be out this weekend called Operation Draugr which is a little more like what your looking for with a central Holding station and several taskings being issued from it. On my next mission I will take your liking's into consideration and see what I can come up with.

[Blooze]

Blooze, I dont know if you have tried any of my missions but they are all available to down load. They may not be the kind of mission you prefer as my missions are very dependent on completing taskings in a limited amount of time or the mission is lost. They are also mostly built for 2-4 players. Although I have turned some of them into SP missions they are difficult to win with just one A10 in the air as most people end up with sensory overload as you cant share out the work load. I have another mission in the build which will be out this weekend called Operation Draugr which is a little more like what your looking for with a central Holding station and several taskings being issued from it. On my next mission I will take your liking's into consideration and see what I can come up with.

 

Actually, I just finished a trial run of OP Spinaker with KA-50s and realized that without the choppers it doesn't do too well so I just DLed the same mission for A10 only and will try it soon. It looks like exactly what I like and I'll be watching for OP Draugr in the forums.

Thanks

[Troutish]

...another reason why we need a dynamic campaign....

[Grimes]

...another reason why we need a dynamic campaign....

 

I don't necessarily agree. Its not a pure issue of DC or no DC, its a need for procedural missions. By that I mean just look at ARMA. In it you've got some really good missions that give out tasks based on randomized parameters. Namely Patrol Ops, Domination, Evolution, etc. The game also has hundreds of pretty good missions built by hand in its powerful mission editor. Now I can't quantitatively say that I spent more time playing one type of mission over the other, but I can say I've certainly had more memorable experiences in the hand built missions. Even with Falcon 4 and the ARMA procedural missions things can get a little repetitive, even though everything is randomized and created based on current conditions, so it isn't the be all end all cure everyone seems to think it is. In the future I hope the ED fast mission creator will improve and create more interesting scenarios and eventually a DC. In the mean time we do have the scripting engine and our powerful mission editor to create procedural missions in the same vein as what ARMA can do. Since the release of 1.2.4 I've seen the number of posts related to the scripting engine increase substantially, so it looks like things are moving in the right direction.

[Midnight]

I must say that I agree with most of what has been said here. What bothers me is the slow pace that mission designers are designing missions, myself included. This can mainly be attributed to the DCS community not supporting designers as much as they could in my opinion.

 

I get the feeling that the information is out there but it has to be dragged out of those in the know. This slows the process considerably.

 

For those that are willing to help, especially with script, thumbs up!

[IADC]

What would be handy is if we could get an official group who would commit to testing missions, ED Missions Testing Team so to speak. Another idea would be to have a chat room in the multi-player GUI so Mission Builders can go in and ask people who want to mission test to join them in testing a new build.

[RagnarDa]

A IRC-channel for mission creators?

[STP Dragon]

In my opinion a ED Mission Tester Team would be overspammed and not working.

The best way to increase the amount of quality missions is to make the editor easier to use so the mission builder can spend more time to test.

I mean thinks like:

- Shorter loading times

- 3D map

- More triggers

- Good documentation with examples of scripts

- Better A.I. (most times I'm working with A.I. airplanes I got furious)

[IADC]

In my opinion a ED Mission Tester Team would be overspammed and not working.

The best way to increase the amount of quality missions is to make the editor easier to use so the mission builder can spend more time to test.

I mean thinks like:

- Shorter loading times

- 3D map

- More triggers

- Good documentation with examples of scripts

- Better A.I. (most times I'm working with A.I. airplanes I got furious)

 

 

All good points there. The old 3D map like we used to have in Lockon Mission builder would save hours.

 

Yes AI who behave them selves would be nice but I wont hold my breath on that one.

 

Last but not least, we need more terrain and theaters of operation. Please Please Please give us Nevada. I have dozens of missions I am planning to build once it comes out.

 

We have some very good triggers as it is, but there are a few more that would go down well to prevent having to use trigger combinations to achieve a certain result.

[STP Dragon]

We have some very good triggers as it is, but there are a few more that would go down well to prevent having to use trigger combinations to achieve a certain result.

 

Right!

For example "Activate group by unit". To drop infantry beside a landed Huey.

Or "Activate Group" affecting the clients. So you can enable clients at captured FARPs/Airfields.

[IADC]

Oh yes that is a tasty one , having client spawns at captured bases.

[chromium]

In my opinion the main reason cause few missions are public released is the time and knowledge needed to create them archieving the right AI behaviour and, also, some randomization. And this is mainly due to AI lacks of pre-programmed behaviors or information sharing (like IADS.. every SAM work on his own) or, else, like when they don't retreat when in danger or instant-fire after sights an enemy. It's hardly if you have to tell a supply transport to hold and/or escape instead of running into an enemy IFV company even when they are under fire.

 

A more predictable and consistent behavior by ground troops could help REALLY much in simplify design and testing mission, and reduce the needs of combining multiple trigger and triggered actions to obtain multiple predictable actions. Not even talking about helos or planes AI, which is too much unpredictable if you don't bound them to a series of advanced waypoint or triggered actions.

 

So, to be added at Speed's wishlist (that I completely agree):

- Scripts that enhance the basic AI of this simulator could really improve mission design capabilities and reduce preparation and testing time.

- Ability to group static structures into template. It's stupid that I need to copy 10-15 static-structure-units every times that I want to put a factory or a plant somewhere in the map... and thanks god that we have at least few "fortification structures".

- FARP capabilities linked to units and not to the "FARP" heliport model. Actually we effectively can not have any real concealed LZ.

[sorcer3r]

I would also appreciate some pdf-manuals and miz-example for all the scripting stuff for us "un-luaed" people. ;)

 

 

What bothers me is the slow pace that mission designers are designing missions, myself included.

 

This really depends on the mission type you like to design.

 

Since the release of the UH-1 I have created almost about 10 missions.

These are all coop-missions for A10+Ka50+Uh1 (counter-insurgency scenario: CAS, AFAC, combat rescue, CSAR, recce, Search ->"infiltrate" & Destroy ;), etc.)

 

After flying bms over a year now I have seen that such small scenarios are best what DCS can because you dont need a large hostile "enviroment".

So I stopped thinking about large missions with thousands fo triggers, units and randomizations.

 

For sure these missions are not bad. I remeber I had a lot of fun flying missions like OnStation in the A10. But designing smiliar missions for A10+Uh1+Ka-50 is almost impossible.

And also on these large missions -> its always the same and the locations are the same.

 

So I created now small missions (based on a mission template created before 1.2.4). Duration about 1-2hours.

There are not many enemies and clients have to fly "long" ingresses (15-25 minutes). And I also use as less triggers as possible. (e.g. I do not trigger if a group is destroyed or a LZ is clear. Clients have to decide this alone.)

You also dont have much action there and no voice overs / radio chatter but coop factor is very immense and with tars immersion is good enough.

 

Problem is: they wouldnt work well on public servers because the clients have to start the mission at the same time and they have to be in teamspeak.

 

On the other side: Almost every week a mission is done (maybe same mission story but just a different target area with small changes) and repitition factor is very low because you do not fly the same mission at the same place over and over again.

 

Phew. Lot of text just for a small example that (some) mission design does not need necessarily much time. :D

[IADC]

Phew. Lot of text just for a small example that (some) mission design does not need necessarily much time. :D

 

You could have build 2 missions in the time it took to write all that:megalol:

[sorcer3r]

Yeah. :D so I only finished one.. ;)

[IADC]

I think more importantly right now to get a fire under the mission building community is the new Nevada Terrain. I am so tired of bombing poor old Georgia. Even expanding this map into the Southern areas of Georgia and a little bit of Azerbaijan and Armenia and just making it desert with a few airfields would work for me for now.

[STP Dragon]

Sorcer3r: The topic is that there are not much missions released for the puplic. We figured out that the main reason is the time to make a mission. You dont need much time for your missions and they are awesome.

Right, your missions are not made for puplic servers but for little squadrons like STP they are perfect.

So why you dont release it?

Some more misions on the list made by STP. :-)